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Throughout her career, R&B star Kehlani has spoken up about her identity time and time again. But in a new set of videos posted to her TikTok on Sunday (June 30), the “After Hours” singer shut down anyone who still hasn’t gotten the memo.
In the first clip, the singer spoke about the importance of prioritizing female voices in their life in order to find happiness. “I was bisexual my entire life, and then I came out as a lesbian almost four years ago now,” they said. “But when I realized, recently actually, all of the f–king elevation in my life that has come from de-centering men in every f–king area of it … when I prioritized women and also just centered myself and women? When all the bad b—hes decide what planet we’re going to after we f–k this one, invite me, because I will thrive.”
While most fans in the comments section were supportive, a few began questioning the star’s sincerity, saying that she’d been in multiple relationships with men. So Kehlani made a second video responding to the claims, clapping back at those attempting to invalidate their sexuality.
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“Bringing up the fact that I had a child, or bringing up ex-boyfriends from four years ago or before, bringing up situations from when I was 20? I’m 29. I will be 30 next year,” she said. “I don’t know why there’s this inability to fathom that I’m a raging lesbian.”
She continued, adding that her identity as a lesbian naturally bleeds into her artistry. “And yes, my music is gay! Who I perform to and for is the gays,” she said. “And if you’re stuck in the past, it’s between you and your god. If you’re a man still bringing up my ex-boyfriends, just say you want to f–k ’em.”
In a since-deleted TikTok from April 2021, Kehlani let their fans know that they identified as “gay, gay, gay, gay, gay,” adding that it seemed everyone in their life seemed to know already. “When I want to have these heart-to-hearts with my family and my friends, and I’m like, ‘Guys, I finally know that I’m like gay gay,’ and they’re like, ‘We know, duh,’” they said. “I want you to fall on the floor and be like, ‘Congratulations, we had no idea!’”
Kehlani recently debuted her fourth studio album Crash, which officially debuts at No. 25 on the Billboard 200 dated July 6. The album’s lead single “After Hours,” meanwhile, reaches a new high of No. 72 on this week’s Hot 100, just two slots under Jordan Adetunji’s viral single titled “Kehlani.”
Check out Kehlani’s TikTok videos below:
Shady’s back, tell a friend! Eminem unveiled the second single from his upcoming album on Tuesday (July 2), and for “Tobey,” he tapped fellow Detroit natives Big Sean and Babytron as the featured artists. The song’s corresponding music video is set to arrive on Friday (July 5). “Tobey” marks Em’s first collab with Babytron and […]
Cardi B has given more hope to the Bardi Gang in regards to her long-awaited sophomore album being released in 2024 by teasing another snippet on her Instagram Story on Monday night (July 1). The clip finds the Bronx native showcasing a softer side of her typically fiery raps, and the possible CB2 single samples […]
Flavor Flav admittedly doesn’t know much about water polo, but the Public Enemy rapper is all in on the U.S. Women’s team this summer when they travel to Paris for the 2024 Olympics. After the rapper responded to a comment by team coach and three time gold-medal-winning captain Maggie Steffens calling for support for the team earlier this year, the dynamic duo appeared on CBS Mornings together on Monday (July 1) to talk about their unlikely partnership.
Flav — who has signed a five-year sponsorship deal for both the men’s and women’s U.S. water polo teams — was dressed in his finest red, white and blue team USA olympic gear for the chat, including, of course, an enormous, blinged-out Team USA medallion. “These women out here… the women’s water polo team they out there bustin’ their butt to make United States look good,” Flav told co-hosts Nate Burleson and Gayle King.
“And they chasin’ this dream, you know what I’m sayin’?,” Flav said of the team that scored back-to-back-to-back gold medals in 2012, 2016 and 2020. The Public Enemy hype man admitted that he didn’t know much about the sport before and had only seen it briefly on TV during previous Olympics. But when his manager showed him Steffens’ post about how team members — like many Olympic athletes — have to have two or three jobs to support their sports careers he said he had to get involved.
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“I was definitely surprised. I was really excited,” Steffens said of her reaction when Flav responded to her post and pledged to help out. “When Flav responded it was definitely not who I expected. But it has been a beautiful, beautiful expectation and relationship that has changed and he’s really opened up a lot of doors and truly been a hype man for us. It’s been amazing.”
On May 4, Steffens wrote in an Instagram post that she and her fellow athletes could really use some financial support before this summer’s games. “You all are truly the team behind the team and we feel it and we need it! Many of my teammates aren’t just badass champions, but also teachers, business owners, coaches, physicians assistants, and more. Some may not know this, but most Olympians need a 2nd (or 3rd) job to support chasing the dream (myself included!) and most teams rely on sponsors for travel, accommodations, nutritional support, rent/lodging, and simply affording to live in this day and age,” Steffens wrote on Instagram in paying tribute to her hard-working mates.
Father of four girls Flav, 65, responded at the time, “AYYY YOOO,,, as a girl dad and supporter of all women’s sports – imma personally sponsor you my girl,,, whatever you need. And imma sponsor the whole team. My manager is in touch with your agent and imma use all my relationships and resources to help all y’all even more. That’s a FLAVOR FLAV promise.”
During their interview Flav said that he’s since learned that the intensely physical sport in which players can swim in excess of two miles during a match while treading water most of the time is “one of the hardest games to play.” Blown away by the amount of work they put into their sport for what is typically very little remuneration, Flav said he was happy to step in, which Steffens said has already made a difference.
“He’s always making us laugh and definitely brings a lot of positivity,” Steffens said of the shine Flav has brought amid the anxiety that has begun to creep in as the July 26 opening date for the Paris games approaches. “To have Flav’s really positive, optimist and fun energy it brings a great perspective to our team.” After Flav noted that he can swim, Steffens pledged to get the rapper in the pool to test out his water polo skills.
In a surprise that lit up Steffens already beaming face, Flav revealed that his sponsorship will come with a Virgin Voyage cruise as well as a $1,000 bonus. “That’s amazing,” a shocked-looking Steffens said with a wide grin on her face. “I’m elated, that’s amazing. Thank you so much!”
For now, though, Flav is planning to be in Paris to cheer the team on and, he added, he hopes his effort will open the doors for other celebs to sponsor Olympic athletes.
Check out Flav and Steffens below.
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July 1 is Canada Day, and Drake is celebrating his home country with a social media message to fans. “Happy Canada Day,” he said on his Instagram Stories, wearing a Toronto Raptors T-shirt, before lifting up a cocktail. “Cheers to the whole country.” He also shared a post captioned: “Custom design fine rhymes into salary. […]
Shady’s back, back again. Eminem has revealed the release date of his 12th studio album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce). The LP will arrive on July 12 and Em made the announcement on Monday (July 1) in Slim Shady fashion with a horrifying trailer featuring the birth of a demon baby. “OH […]
Nicki Minaj took to X on Sunday to put her former manager Debra Antney on blast with a lengthy tweet.
Antney, who also happens to be Waka Flocka Flame’s mother, was recently on the Opinionated Truths podcast where she was asked if she were willing to arrange a sit-down between Minaj and her well-documented foes Lil’ Kim and Cardi B. “I think that we all would love to see that, but people would have to be willing to do that,” she replied. “To be perfectly honest with you — she’s gonna kill me for even saying this — but I did reach out to Kim.”
She then shook her head as to say Kim wasn’t receptive to the idea.
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🎙️| Deb Antney spoke with a Podcast and was asked if She Would be willing to get Nicki Minaj to mend differences with Lil Kim & Cardi b ?Deb Antney responds she did reach out to Lil Kim but she declined mending with Nicki Minaj . #allegedly #lilkim pic.twitter.com/2rlupxizYm— OPINIONATED_TRUTHS_PODCAST™️ (@O_Truths) July 1, 2024
Well, she was right, because Nicki set the record straight on X, saying she didn’t ask her ex-manager to say a thing.
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Read her full statement below:
“Deb, Isn’t it funny how you left out the biggest part of the story? I didn’t ask you to do a THING!
“You told me AFTER THE FACT & I SCREAMED ON YOU & told you if you reach out to ppl now that you’re being seen around me, they will THINK it’s coming FROM ME so to NEVER do that again w/o discussing it with me FIRST. I said I’d never want that & that now she’d think that message came from me which is not cool.
“So yea… You laughed it off & said her & foxy should come out I said no. I’d only want foxy to come out on stage with me, she’s like family to me. No disrespect. God bless everyone & our children!!! Let us all do our thing & thank God for LIFE. Stop using my name for clickbait in 2024. We get it!!!!! I’m dat btch!!!!!!
“How dare you? Interviews? Chiiiiiiiiiiiiii WOO WEE!!!!! This world, man, this world.”
Deb,Isn’t it funny how you left out the biggest part of the story?#GagCity 2nd leg TOUR in the US begins SEPTEMBER!!!!! Next stop #GagCityMILAN ITALY 🇮🇹 Previous stop. #GagCityMorocco 🇲🇦 almost 200K beautiful ppl came out.I didn’t ask you to do a THING! You told me AFTER…— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) July 1, 2024
Nicki and Kim have been going back and forth since 2010, when the Pink Friday rapper seemingly took shots at the Queen B on “Roman’s Revenge.” Lil’ Kim then responded to those jabs with the diss track “Black Friday,” and the rest, as they say, is history.
Antney managed Minaj for a good part of her early career, and the two still seem to be on good terms. Deb was spotted with Nicki multiple times during the Pink Friday 2 Tour.
Muni Long teamed up with Mariah Carey for the remix of her latest hit, “Made for Me,” and she chatted with Billboard on the BET Awards red carpet on Sunday (June 30) about the collaboration. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news “Mariah’s an icon and every chance […]
Lil Wayne would make the cut in a lot of rap fans’ top five lists, but he’s keeping himself out of the mix when revealing his.
Tunechi joined the Not Just Football With Cam Heyward podcast last week and made a couple of tweaks to his top five rappers list compared to the one he shared with Billboard in 2023.
“My top five rappers of all time are Jay-Z, Missy Elliott, Eminem, The Notorious B.I.G, and this is no specific order right here — and Drizzy,” he told the Pittsburgh Steelers defensive lineman.
When speaking to Billboard for Hip-Hop 50 last year, Weezy had Missy, Jay and Biggie on his list, but switched out Goodie Mob and UGK for Eminem and his Young Money protégé Drake.
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“It’s because I organically grew up on [them]. You know, when you’re asked, ‘How’d you start listening?,’ there’s a story for everybody … like, someone I know told me to start listening or whatever. But like I said, every decision I make is organic,” he said last August after coming in at No. 7 on Billboard and Vibe‘s Greatest Rappers of All Time list.
Lil Wayne never misses a chance to give Missy Elliott her flowers, and crowned her as one of his top influences when appearing on Fox Sports host Nick Wright’s podcast in 2022. “She’s a huge influence of everything I’ve ever done,” he admitted.
As far as his own career goes, the Young Money boss isn’t slowing down anytime soon. He also revealed to Heyward that he’s got his sights set on Tha Carter VI as his next project, which is coming “soon.”
“It’s soon, though, because it’s what’s next from me,” he said. “It’s coming out next, actually. I’m not sure of the actual date but it is my next project.”
Watch the full interview below with talk of Wayne’s top five starting around 23:40.
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Throughout his Grammy-winning career as a rapper, musician, songwriter and producer, much of Wyclef Jean’s recorded output highlights Jamaican music culture’s vast influence. There’s the Fugees (Wyclef, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Pras Michel) covering Bob Marley’s “No Woman No Cry”; his co-writing/co-producing a reggae hit for Whitney Houston (“Your Love Is My Love”); starting his own Jamaican style sound system, Refugee Sound; and making dub plates, the specialized recordings that are essential to ‘killing’ an opponent in a sound clash. Yet he’s never recorded a reggae album — that is, until now.
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One Night in Kingston is Wyclef’s debut roots reggae venture, recorded at The Compound in Kingston, Jamaica, a studio/rehearsal space owned by reggae artist Tom Jones, a.k.a. Panic, the album’s executive producer. Panic is also a writer on the project and a featured artist on the track “Walking to Higher Ground.” “I’ve known Panic for over 20 years; he said, ‘yo, we need a Wyclef Jean reggae album,’ so he brought me into the studio,” Wyclef explained. “I don’t know when it’s coming out. I never put a date on music because that means it isn’t good. Music has to be like a Lauryn Hill album, the best album of all time.”
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At the 2024 BET Awards on Sunday (June 30), Wyclef shared the stage with Hill at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, helping close out the show alongside her son, YG Marley. Ms. Hill’s only studio album, the diamond-certified The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, hit at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, won the album of the year Grammy in 1999 and was named “the best album of all time” by Apple Music on May 22. Three days after the latest honor, Billboard sat down with Wyclef inside a spacious villa in Discovery Bay, Jamaica, to discuss One Night in Kingston. Wyclef was on the island to host the Sashi Experience concert later that night; John Shop Records, owned by Sashi co-founder Duwayne John, will release One Night in Kingston with an as-of-yet unannounced label/distribution partner. Panic says the first single will drop in July.
“Panic is a genius, and the album’s combinations are insane,” offers Wyclef. “There’s a track with me, (veteran reggae singer) Luciano and (Ghanaian dancehall/Afrobeats artist) Stonebwoy. That’s Haiti, Jamaica and Africa on one track, never been done before. I have a song with (dancehall artist) Jada Kingdom: we connected at the Caribbean Music Awards (hosted by Wyclef in August 2023.) As a sound (system) man, I wanted to feature young Jamaican artists. That’s my pulse, rocking with the youth, getting their energy out there.”
Wyclef interrupted our interview to pick up his vibrating cell phone, which signaled the arrival of Lauryn Hill’s dub plate of “Ex-Factor,” the second single from Miseducation. Instead of the romantic difficulties depicted in the original, the lyrics to Hill’s new dub are aimed at a rival sound system: “no sound can clash like Refugee, and no one ever will,” sings Hill with the impassioned soulfulness heard on the original. “Ex-Factor” is one of several customized recordings Wyclef prepared for the Sashi hosting gig (which also included Wyclef doing handstands, jumping into the crowd and obliging fans with selfies and calling an audience member onstage to freestyle lyrics). Immediately after listening to the “Ex-Factor” dub plate, an ecstatic Wyclef thanked Lauryn, via voice note, as only he could: “Ms. Hill, I just want to leave Jamaica and give you a thousand kisses; you can have the fences up, the dogs out, I am getting through every motherf–ker!”
Wyclef resumed our conversation by explaining the impact Jamaican sound systems have had on his musical endeavors, including Fugees’ 1996 debut, The Score. “I was introduced to sound system culture at 14 when I heard a tape by (Jamaica’s) Stone Love,” Wyclef recalled. “Sound systems bring an eclectic musical blend; the selector can be playing reggae and then go into (Eurythmics’) ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).’ That’s like my eclectic love for music. Somebody saying this is rock, this is rap, this is country, my brain doesn’t register that. My brain registers, I either love or hate the song.”
Wyclef compares the Billboard 200-topping The Score to a sound system tape. “Ms. Hill introduced me to the depths of soul music, I introduced her to sound clash culture, that’s what’s so dope about it,” Wyclef continued. “We originally did ‘Killing Me Softly’ as a dub plate, with lyrics like ‘killing a sound boy with his sound.’ When we sent it for clearance, people were like, ‘what is it? we can’t clear this.’ (Brooklyn sound system) King Addies’ selectors Baby Face and Tony Matterhorn cut the first Fugees dub plate for ‘Fug-Gee-La’ for their clash with LP International. Attending that clash changed my life. I was like, ‘oh sh-t, now I want to build my sound and collect dub plates.’”
Born in Haiti, the world’s first free, Black-led republic, Wyclef (who ran for the presidency of the Caribbean nation in 2010) immigrated to the U.S. at nine years old. He grew up listening to hip-hop and winning school rap battles. A self-taught musician who plays 14 instruments, teenaged Wyclef also played upright bass in a jazz band, sang in the choir and listened to heavy metal, country and classical music. As an artist/producer, he’s touched on all genres with a varied, extensive list of collaborators, from Avicii to the New York Philharmonic to Shakira. Wyclef’s immersion in Jamaican culture hues a large swathe of his catalog. The biggest surprise surrounding One Night In Kingston is that Wyclef hasn’t previously recorded a reggae album.
“Clef’s roots are in Jamaica as much as they are in Haiti, he has synergy with the people,” commented Duwayne John as he played One Night In Kingston for Billboard at The Compound; “One In the Chamber,” featuring Jamaican singer Lila Iké, laments a failed relationship and was the first track Wyclef recorded there. “The energy was right and from that track came the entire album,” Duwayne remarks.
The album’s reggae rhythms were played live by The Compound Band, who individually tour with marquee Jamaican artists including Stephen Marley and Buju Banton. With Panic working in Kingston and Wyclef based in the U.S., One Night In Kingston came together via digital communication. “The musicians play the music, I send it to Wyclef, and we talk about the direction. Our mindsets and writing styles are similar, that’s why making this album was effortless,” explains Panic, who then shared their intentional approach. “The album is reggae with elements of [what] Clef calls that ‘Travis Scott reggae.’ Kids are turned off by the same old reggae their grandparents listened to. YG Marley (son of Lauryn Hill and Rohan Marley) took his grandfather’s song (Bob Marley’s ‘Crisis’) and made it new (‘Praise Jah in the Moonlight,’ which peaked at No. 34 on the Hot 100). Even before YG broke, we knew it’s that ‘now’ element that has been missing from reggae.”
Wyclef is working on his first Refugee Sound tape highlighting his collection of dub plates that includes Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson and Kenny Rogers. A mixtape of unreleased Fugees material is also slated for release, which coincides with the recently announced Ms. Lauryn Hill and the Fugees 2024 tour dates, where they’ll perform selections from Miseducation and The Score. Wyclef confirms that Fugees’ lineup is intact although Pras Michel is awaiting sentencing following his April 2023 conviction on 10 criminal charges, including conspiracy and witness tampering. “Pras toured with us in 2023, he’ll be touring with us this year,” notes Wyclef. “Tell everybody who missed us last year — Fugees are picking back up. You want to catch us now.”